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reviewer2146887 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Works perfectly and provides a secure and fast connection to our corporate network from anywhere
Pros and Cons
  • "For me, it's important that I get a connection to my corporate network in a secure and fast way. This product just runs in the background and doesn't need any attention. For me, as a user, it's perfect."
  • "Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."

What is our primary use case?

I'm doing business for customers. I'm building customer networks. We have Cisco Umbrella and Cisco Secure Endpoint, and the use case is that we connect to the company network from all over the place, and we need to do it in a secure way. 

We are just a small company with about 300 employees. Everybody is using these products to securely connect to the corporate network. From there, we support our customers. It needs to be really secure so that no security problems spread from our network to the customers' network. This is something we absolutely need to avoid. That's why these products are really good for us.

How has it helped my organization?

For me, it's quite good for daily work. Mainly, I work from a home office, so I have it running all day. It's okay for me. There is not much noise about it. I don't need to pay a lot of attention to this. It's just running in the background, and that's what I need.

It enables mobile work from anywhere. If you are at home, at a customer, or traveling, it enables a secure way of accessing the corporate network.

As a user, everything is there for securing our infrastructure from end to end to detect and remediate threats. There's nothing else that I need.

It saves time for sure. It doesn't require much attention. Everybody can use it. The end-users don't need to have any special skills. It's just perfect. I don't have the metrics on time savings because it isn't easy to know how much time you would have spent if you had an unstable product or if you had to take care of all this. 

What is most valuable?

For me, it's important that I get a connection to my corporate network in a secure and fast way. This product just runs in the background and doesn't need any attention. For me, as a user, it's perfect. 

What needs improvement?

Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place.

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Cisco Umbrella for about a year and a half, and we've been using Cisco Secure Endpoint for somewhat longer. It has been about three years.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't been in touch with them because it's just working.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used other products such as separate virus scanners. Using all the products from Cisco simplified things. You don't need to worry about whether it's compatible or whether you need to do something special on the antivirus side. It simplified things for me.

How was the initial setup?

I work for customers, and this was set up by our internal IT department. 

What other advice do I have?

I would advise seriously looking into it because, for our users, it's just working perfectly. 

I would rate it a 10 out of 10. There are no complaints.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Daniel Kuhl - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO / Owner / Network Specialist at NSCON Network Services & Consulting GmbH
Real User
Has good documentation and its general ability to detect and remediate threats is quite good
Pros and Cons
  • "The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves."
  • "It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for DNS security.

It is deployed on the Umbrella cloud dashboard.

How has it helped my organization?

Cisco Umbrella helped to improve security by detecting and prohibiting threats.

What is most valuable?

I like the API. I also like the way Cisco Umbrella uses DNS to block malicious sites before they are opened.

Its general ability to detect and remediate threats is quite good.

The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves.

What needs improvement?

It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been working with Cisco Umbrella for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with stability.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, with ten being the very best, I'd rate Cisco Umbrella at nine.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Director of Security
Real User
Helped us monitor activity and find bad actors who had managed to grab and control some of our domains
Pros and Cons
  • "Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."
  • "The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."

What is our primary use case?

In my previous company, there was a gap in being able to put controls on users when they were away from the network. We thought, "Okay, Umbrella can do this for us," and it was at a reasonable cost for our security budget.

How has it helped my organization?

With Umbrella, it didn't matter if the users were in the office or they were going to go out. When I trained them I said, "If you go to Target, Starbucks, or anywhere else you can get on a hotspot, you're going to be covered with our rules, so we can make sure you're protected and that our company device is protected."

It gave our users, from all of our sites, something like a first line of defense, including monitoring all the exit points of our offices. We also used Cisco AnyConnect on everybody's laptop so that any time they were out, we were making sure to secure their machine and keep an eye on it.

Having a single pane of glass allowed us to quickly monitor and find out what was happening at that moment. We could see active connections going to a public address on the internet. At one point there were so many of them, thousands and thousands to one public address, which was more than normal. I had to contact Cisco support, and say, "This is what I'm seeing. Something's not right," and they said, "You're right." In the main screen, we switched over to investigation and we found that it was a bad actor. The bad actor was checking for domains that are flying around, and he found a few of ours that weren't paid for. He bought them and then he started controlling where they were going by redirecting them. That raised a big red flag for our company. They never had any idea that that had been going on for a very long time.

There were other bad actors who had some of our domain names as well. I had to work with legal and we actually purchased back a few domain names from people. As a result, we taught our guys internally, "When you do a domain and you're going to do tests in the lab, make sure that we put purchase orders in. It's so cheap, let's buy them so that we have control of them, and not allow this again." That was a big awakening.

Another benefit of Cisco Umbrella was related to our wireless. If we had a vendor come to our company, I'd have to get permission for him to use our wireless. I'd have to put in a ticket with his machine name, the IP he would have, and ask for a two-hour window. But I could tell that vendor, "In the same way that you are helping us with the product we purchased from your company, we're going to help protect you at no charge. When you get on our wireless, we're going to have it set up so that everything you do is monitored, just like everybody else here in the company. Even though you don't work for our company, you'll be protected and that will help protect us." They would stare at me, and I'd say, "I know a lot of companies don't do that, but we're doing that because we want to make sure you have a good experience and that we have a good experience by staying safe."

What is most valuable?

I was able to make use of Cisco Umbrella because it acts like a proxy. The company also had content security, which I used on-prem with Blue Coat products. Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do.

The single pane of glass management was one of the really good features. From that single pane, not only could you look at what was happening security-wise, such as what was being blocked by domains and IPs, but you could check for your roaming users. With a deployment of AnyConnect, or just the Umbrella agent, on 5,000 machines, you could watch the main glass and see how many roaming users were out there that had it on their machines. And even if they were in the office, it was always active, talking to Cisco's cloud.

You could see numbers. I was able to watch, as we were deploying, how many people were getting the agent. I could see activity such as how many blocks we were getting, what types of blocks they were, and whether they were in categories. I would ask why those users were going to those categories that they shouldn't be going to. Maybe we needed to just refresh them with an email saying, "Hey, remember, we don't do this kind of thing."

Cisco's Umbrella client product is superb. It worked so well for us and was easy to deploy.

What needs improvement?

The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence.

They should work with their customers to find out, when they're troubleshooting, if they're going through multiple screens just to get little pieces of information. Maybe they could design an overall security screen for an event and pull that stuff in so that it's on one screen, rather than having to go search for it. Right now, you're always going back and looking on the left-hand side, going down the column, and trying to remember where something you need is. You have to click all over the place to go find what you're looking for.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used it at my previous company for about four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It was always up. We never had any problems. It was always there.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling was very simple. Since we were using a VPN, we had Cisco AnyConnect on all the user machines, with Umbrella built into it, and that deployment was just blasted out and it was seamless.

How are customer service and support?

The Cisco Umbrella support group was wonderful; very strong. I loved it. I never had one issue with them. They were willing to be there with us, and walk us through things every bit of the way.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't have a whole lot going on in terms of security and when I got a new manager, he asked, "How do we protect the people when they're out in a store?" That's when we saw that's where the flaw was. We were protecting everything on-prem but the gap we found was that when users were traveling around, we were not seeing where they were going. We were holding them to a standard internally, but when they were outside they were doing whatever they wanted.

How was the initial setup?

What a simple product. It's a fast deployment. Then, you can start designing how you want to do your policies and what you're going to block. But once we told them what public addressing they were going to see, within a few hours we would see them go green. We said, "It's already seeing the data. Let's start applying policies, and we can start controlling all this."

What was our ROI?

We looked at metrics. As I mentioned, one of the benefits we received was finding the bad actors who had collected our domains that weren't paid for. That helped us to put the magnifying glass to use and say, "Hey, we have something going on." 

I also worked with an outside company that Cisco purchased. I sent them our data from Umbrella and they actually mapped out our data and found bots on our network. There weren't many, but there were a few. The guy shared that with me on the screen and said, "If you buy the service to have us be part of your Cisco deployment, we'll take your data, continually analyze it, and give you reports." 

There was one bot in particular that was just sitting there. The guy at the other company said, "That bot that you're seeing, it's asleep. Look again in a few hours," and it popped up. He said, "It just woke up at that point to try to do a command call." He said, "But we're blocking them, so you're not getting any threats." We didn't know that we had bots in there, and that was a big benefit.

I also had to run numbers for reports. One of them looked at our category-blocking on Umbrella, such as blocks of alcohol sites, social media, weapons, government. I would provide monthly reports to show how many blocks we had from our users trying to go to these types of categories, and it really woke up management: "Wow. That thing is blocking." 

Our investment in this worked, and we were showing it by numbers. It wasn't only that we found bots and bad actors, but we were also controlling things  by blocking phishing and categories. It was protecting us and no one was able to get past those blocks.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing was marvelous. We only had to pay for licenses and they worked a very nice deal with us. It was a much better way to go because it was within budget. It was an easy cost for us to handle.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other options. We invited Cisco to come in and do a demonstration, and it was so strong. I also come from a Cisco background of many years. In addition, the industry reviews rated them very well and we took that as our lead.

When they came in and showed us what they could do and how easy it was to monitor every one of our sites within a day, after we put in our external public addresses, it was a no-brainer. It was up and live by the next day, after just a few hours. It was easy to use and set up and we could use it like our internal proxies. We could manage the content and know what was going on and investigate things. We knew what sites people were going to. It was wonderful. Everything we needed was there. We didn't have to go any further, and we knew Cisco would have our back.

What other advice do I have?

All the users understood why we were putting the security control in place, to show that not only were they going to be protected at work on company-owned devices, but whenever they would go outside, we were also going to help. We had to mitigate the chances that they would get something on their machines and make sure that we stopped anything that shouldn't come in and affect our network or expose us to anything.

With Cisco Umbrella, employee morale was very high. We hardly had any complaints at all. One of the reasons is that, when doing regular security troubleshooting, we would go to Umbrella as our first line investigation. We might find a domain or IP that was being blocked by Cisco, something they consider a risk. We would check it out and if it didn't look to be bad we could bypass the block and allow that AD group or set of users to go to that site, because they had to do business as usual. With that ability, we had very few problems, if at all. Overall, it was smooth, with everybody happy, including management. They were happy that we had our first line of defense and that it worked out very well.

I introduce Umbrella to any company that I'm involved with. Cisco is already taking the correct steps right now, as a CASB for any cloud activity as well as DLP. Once they circled around to help companies with protection when they move to the cloud, that was the right direction. I'm not using Umbrella every day anymore, but I'm a proponent of it as a first defense for your company at a reasonable cost. And you don't have hardware to manage. You just rely on Cisco, get your support contract, and work with them to have them help fix things.

I'm a firm believer in Cisco Umbrella and I would definitely use it everywhere I go. I'm speaking to companies in the health industry and telling them, "Guys, you can't just have four people working on security and think you're going to do everything in the world to protect your hospital. You're going to end up on the news." I try to introduce them to this type of solution, to at least have something there to mitigate and help out.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Network Administrator
Video Review
Real User
Saves us a lot of time and a lot of effort in isolating the actual issue
Pros and Cons
  • "A single pane of glass saves time... This does have a lot of options available for us to see who's doing what, what trends, what errors. We can set up our alerting through it as well. It is definitely a great dashboard."
  • "Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff."

What is our primary use case?

We use Umbrella to monitor user activity and make sure that our staff isn't clicking on malicious links. We also use it to protect us by being more proactive on links that are already known to cause harm or potential hacks. Overall, it's keeping everything in a safe box.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a lot of challenges with staff clicking on ad links, random Google search links. Most staff want to shop during the day or in their downtime and were clicking on random links and then causing potential network issues, bugs, and causing network downs. Umbrella has helped us limit that.

It has provided our organization with more stability. Even though staff would like to shop using certain links, it gives us the option to educate them: "Hey, some of these links, just don't click on those." We are pretty lenient. We understand people want to shop and do other things at work. We try to keep it work-related, but safe.

Everyone really just wants to be able to click and do what they do, just like at home. But for the IT side of it, it does benefit us by limiting all of the extra activity. It does give us some comfortability that we aren't going to wake up, or even come in in the afternoon, and the whole network is down because someone went to buy some shoes or they clicked on a malicious email and caused a chain reaction.

It's very important for our organization to support the hybrid workers because we're a health clinic. A lot of staff are going to be away, but with the COVID numbers still out there, we want to be able to provide the same support that we did before COVID. We want to give the same flexibility, the same availability to our patients, that we had in the past. Being remote or having hybrid, it does give us a different range of opportunities to implement different workflows. They can reach out with more telecommunication, more video conferencing, rather than having a patient drive out to a site to seek support. We can do remote assistance and, with Umbrella, it still gives us the opportunity to be secure through those communication links.

We don't really have metrics at this particular time for it, but just [anecdotally] from past troubleshooting, having to diagnose maybe five different areas, this saves us a lot of time and a lot of effort in isolating the actual issue. We can just open up Umbrella, go to the specific area that we feel is impacted, or just look at one of the key dashboards that are on the portal and identify the issue.

It's very easy to maintain network connectivity with Umbrella. Before, we were having a lot of issues, but since Umbrella has been implemented, we really haven't had to touch it. It's kind of self-sufficient.

The solution is a lot more proactive. It does have its own features where it constantly uploads known threats and blocks those. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of our environment, but it also gives us an opportunity, if there are some questionable links, to diagnose those without it impacting the environment.

What is most valuable?

The best feature is the visibility. We're able to see the specific user names of whoever clicked on a certain link. It also gives us a threat detection level. It allows us to maintain more [awareness of] who's doing what they shouldn't be doing. The most valuable asset of it is giving us the ability to categorize who should have access to what type of sites.

This solution does give us a single-pane-of-glass for this particular instance. We do have several products implemented that we manage, which this hasn't integrated with yet, but we have just been made aware of the SecureX implementation and we are looking into implementing that and bringing that into another single-pane-of-glass, but with more options available.

A single pane of glass saves time. It saves effort and the headache of having to open up multiple links and go to different dashboards for troubleshooting different areas. This does have a lot of options available for us to see who's doing what, what trends, what errors. We can set up our alerting through it as well. It is definitely a great dashboard.

The dashboard, the single pane, is very helpful, it's very visual. Everything is straightforward there; it's definitely important for management. Even when we bring it to upper management and explain why this product is beneficial for us, this gives us a good breakdown and makes a lot of details available for us.

What needs improvement?

So far, I haven't seen any areas that need improvement. As far as what we need it to do, it's doing just that. It's comfortable for us. It's working beyond our expectations. Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've had Umbrella implemented for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very great. Once it's deployed and you do your due diligence to make sure that everything is communicating and in sync, we've hardly had to touch it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For our environment, it doesn't seem to have any issues with the amount of users and staff. We have been constantly growing since we deployed it without any impact. No negative impact is forecasted.

How are customer service and support?

The support has been really good. I have only had to utilize support about three times. It's been more of a training area: "How do I get to this area?" and "What does this actually do? How can this benefit me?" From there, it still has been stable and smooth and doing everything that we expected it to do.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had a different overall firewall solution, which was a Sophos firewall. But since we migrated away from that, we implemented the Firepower firewall and, in addition to that, added in Umbrella.

The reliability wasn't really there, with Sophos always having issues, even from the endpoint perspective. We had issues across the board and it was management's decision to look into a new solution.

How was the initial setup?

We just did one deployment through a virtual machine and that manages all of our routers and all of our users. We haven't had to do multi-site configurations or deployments. It goes towards the organization, uploads all of our users, and all of our statistics, and maintains things from there.

What was our ROI?

I'm not sure of the actual cost that went into it, but it's definitely a productive product for us.

What other advice do I have?

The solution doesn't require almost any maintenance, unless you're doing triple checks, upgrades, or just being proactive in different areas. But for the most part, once it's deployed, you just give it about a week or two to check your levels and make sure everything is the way that you intend the product to work.

As far as the IT infrastructure team goes, we're all happy with the product. It definitely takes a lot of load off of our plate. We don't have to deal with certain sites being blocked. We have been able to set expectations, where these particular users have access to these types of sites, and certain sites are just blocked. That's just the company standard. From the staff perspective, they want to be able to browse freely, but we were able to set those expectations and guidelines and that we're working in the best interests of the site.

I'll rate it a 10 out of 10. It's been functioning very efficiently and effectively, and it's doing everything we need it to do. It takes a lot of load off of our team.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Dustin Funkhouser - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and security at Education Service Center - Region 11
Real User
I can create custom policies for bad domains that we want to block
Pros and Cons
  • "When it comes to hybrid work it's pretty effective. We've got the agents. We can protect people inside our building and, when they're using their laptops out in the field, they're still protected. It's working well."
  • "If we're trying to deploy it to a Mac through Meraki, it's impossible. The method of deployment for a Mac, and the features available in Meraki, are not compatible at all."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to protect our users from getting to any known bad domains.

How has it helped my organization?

It does what it's supposed to do, protecting us from getting to somewhere that we shouldn't.

The solution also helps us remediate threats more quickly. Examples are when an email campaign comes in with malicious links, or if they're on a website like Facebook which is full of junk that doesn't need to come through.

What is most valuable?

Domain blocking is among the most valuable features. It keeps people from accidentally clicking on something they shouldn't. Also, if I see an email that comes through, I can pick out bad domains that we want to block and make custom policies to block them.

In addition, when it comes to hybrid work it's pretty effective. We've got the agents. We can protect people inside our building and, when they're using their laptops out in the field, they're still protected. It's working well.

The single pane of glass management is also pretty helpful because we don't have to hunt for what we're trying to work on.

What needs improvement?

Getting to some of the reporting features is something that could be improved. When I am tracking someone that has done something, my first hint is usually an email, because I've got those scheduled to come in every so often. But then I've got to log in, dig into that user, find the time period, and then export it. There's a lot of waiting involved through all of those steps.

It would be helpful if there were an embedded link in the email so that when it says it blocked something in particular, I wouldn't have to click through five or six different things to get what was blocked in that email. With a link like that, I could just click from within the notification email and it would take me straight to that page.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Cisco Umbrella for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't had any issues when using it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling it is pretty easy. Every time we need to put it on a machine, it's just part of the deployment process.

There are a lot of features that I haven't used. They've been doing a lot of work on it recently and I was talking to one of our Cisco reps who talked about some things we can do with it that we're not doing yet.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had to use technical support.

How was the initial setup?

It's continuously deployed because, if we wipe out a computer, we've got to put the agent back on it. If we have to put it on a Windows machine, it's easy. If we're trying to deploy it to a Mac through Meraki, it's impossible. The method of deployment for a Mac, and the features available in Meraki, are not compatible at all. Getting it to the point where you could deploy a Cisco product with a Cisco product would be beneficial.

What other advice do I have?

Umbrella is pretty invisible to our employees. Most of them don't know we're using it. There isn't a lot of user training involved, as long as your security people can get in there and do what they need to do.

It's a great tool because you can effectively block a lot of things that can infect your machines. People don't realize they're getting something that's malicious.

Overall, it has been pretty helpful for what we're using it for.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
IT Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The end user has been much happier with their application performance
Pros and Cons
  • "Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."
  • "Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."

What is our primary use case?

We have a centralized security policy. For the end user traffic from the firewall to go out to the Internet, it traverses through the secure SD-WAN going back to the data center. It passes a lot of proxies, firewalls, and different security checks. Hence, there are some performance issues. Therefore, we asked Cisco to come in and see if there were any products that could improve this situation for the local Internet breakout, and this was the solution that they brought to the table.

We have a remote location that uses Viptela SD-WAN in conjunction with Umbrella.

How has it helped my organization?

It adds a lot of value to the environment. The end user has been much happier with their application performance after using it. I don't see any drawbacks with this solution. 

Hybrid work is also kind of important. Some users may be working from home these days, especially after COVID, as they don't necessarily have to come back to the centralized location for security checks. They can have security going out local from their home environment as well. 

The performance has been greatly improved, especially for some of the end users who kept creating tickets and complaining that it was really slow when everything had to go through the central tool for security checks. Now, everything is locally broken out. Also, security now has all the right filters and malware checks.

The malware piece protects the network from malicious attacks. We have had a lower case of security breaches. Therefore, that brings a lot of value to the table.

What is most valuable?

The content filtering piece is something that really ties back to what my customer is using because they do have some sites that they don't want end users to go to, in order for the security to be locally available, allowing the users to break out to the Internet. The content filtering is a key piece that our customers want to test and use. So, we tested, and it was successful.

The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. Management wants to look at a single frame, then expand it to get the information that they need, without relying on engineers to take it out. Sometimes, engineers need to go down multiple levels to get the information and package it, and then it is possibly not the information that they are looking for. So, it has to be done again.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't encountered any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. There aren't any limitations with its scalability. We can scale it out.

How are customer service and support?

We have had some tech cases. However, a lot of times we have our account engineers who help out. They are very savvy and knowledgeable. If something is unknown, they will reach out to internal Cisco for help. They are pretty good. I would give them 9 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did previously use a different solution. 

We wanted to do the local breakout, but our previous solution wasn't able to do it. We spent quite a bit of time testing the other solution, but it just didn't work. This is why we reached out to Cisco.

How was the initial setup?

We did some testing. Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco. The POC probably took a month or so

What was our ROI?

Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers.

What other advice do I have?

Usually when we have a good solution, we share it with our peers who can then bring it to their customer's attention, if they need to solve the same problem.

I would rate this solution anywhere between 8 and 9 out of 10 because it addresses the needs of my customer, but leaving room for improvement.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1407087 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Security & Compliance at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Significantly reduces investment in hardware-based firewalls by diminishing refresh frequency
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers."
  • "If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."

What is our primary use case?

One of the main use cases of Cisco Umbrella kicked in during the COVID pandemic, as a SASE deployment—secure access, secure edge. Most of the users within a company started working from outside the company and that is when Umbrella became deployed a lot.

What is most valuable?

One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see hardware-based integrations. If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it. The solution is pretty good, but if a hardware-based solution came through, it would meet all the compliance standards in my country.

Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been deploying Cisco Umbrella for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. I've gotten very positive feedback from the customers who have deployed it within their environment. The feedback has been amazing. It's up and running 99.9 percent of the time, since it's a cloud-based solution. We have had no problems related to bugs or any issues like that.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. Although I'm not talking to the clients anymore, I'm sure that the organization I worked with is working with them to spread the solution to more users who were not covered in the initial deployment. There is an adoption roadmap for this product.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is included as part of the subscription. At any point in time, if you have any queries, there's a 24/7 TAC number available. You can just call and log a case.

I'm also very satisfied with the documentation provided for the solution.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The previous solution we used was Akamai, but Akamai was more costly compared to Umbrella, and the consumption model was not favorable. Cisco Umbrella cost at least 30 percent less compared to what Akamai offered.

How was the initial setup?

One of the key aspects of Umbrella is the deployment. It takes a matter of just 30 minutes to deploy it in any enterprise and, as soon as it is deployed, it starts to work, so it is seamless. The benefits are realized immediately.

The implementation strategy is pretty straightforward. On the customer's existing hardware you just have to make the entries that will enable the connection to Umbrella and it starts to run. It's a single-person deployment, a single network engineer. That is the beauty of it; you don't require a huge team to deploy it.

Umbrella doesn't require any maintenance. All the updates happen automatically. The configuration is a one-time process.

It can be deployed on the public cloud and private cloud. These are two of the selling factors, although public cloud is more common. It's a multi-location solution but can also be used by a single headquarters. On average, our deployments are for 2,000 endpoints.

What was our ROI?

If you look at the ROI, Umbrella significantly reduces investment in hardware-based firewalls. For example, typically, an enterprise has to refresh its firewalls every five years. By using Umbrella, they don't have to change their firewalls, rather the security posture is shifted to a cloud-based provider.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Other than Akamai, there weren't many providers available in India.

What other advice do I have?

One important piece of advice would be to look at your existing framework and see which use cases Umbrella can address. That will make the adoption much easier.

Umbrella is the best product available as of now. 

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1922784 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
It is user-friendly and very easy to manage, but their support should be more efficient
Pros and Cons
  • "It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
  • "Their support should be improved. It is necessary that the support is efficient. It is not really easy to get a resolution for an issue from Cisco support. They should be faster and more efficient."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for user navigation. We have another solution for the server, and Umbrella is used for the people in the company for web access and security purposes. It helps to avoid security problems and authorize different types of access to the users for different web services. 

How has it helped my organization?

I am a network administrator, and for me, it is the best solution because it is easy to manage. It is also effective for web access for the users.

With the old solution, we had a lot of restrictions because it was old technology and it was very important to provide different types of access. Umbrella is a cloud solution, and we can add access to new services or websites. It is a good product.

It is totally transparent for the users. When you have Cisco Umbrella on your computer, you cannot really see the product. It is very important for the users to not see the product.

It is very easy to manage, which is really important. We do not have time to manage this solution, and it is really important to have a good performance without any action or monitoring from my team. We work with Umbrella every day, but we don't need to make any changes on Umbrella because it is working.

It is easy to maintain network connectivity consistently across all workplaces, and it has been a good experience for our employees.

It provides resilience on all the sites. We have five sites, and all the sites have Umbrella.

What is most valuable?

It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution. 

What needs improvement?

Their support should be improved. It is necessary that the support is efficient. It is not really easy to get a resolution for an issue from Cisco support. They should be faster and more efficient.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about three to four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I do not have a problem with this. We only had one bug three months ago, and we had a problem with the support, but before that, it has been a good experience.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We deployed it on different sites of the company. We use it for a lot of different services. 

We have about 600 users, but we have 1,000 licenses. We might increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

Cisco Umbrella's support is not really efficient. When we have a problem, it is difficult to have good support. It is not really easy to resolve a problem with Cisco support. Three months ago, we had a problem with it, and the support was not very efficient. I would rate them a six out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had a French solution. It was an old solution, and it was not sufficient for the company. Cisco Umbrella has been the best for our company.

How was the initial setup?

It is not really easy, but because we have experts with us, it was not complex for us. We did this in one month because it was really important to give good services to the users.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI, but it is hard to provide metrics.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We did a good negotiation, and at the moment, its price is fine.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I didn't look at other options. I only tested Cisco Umbrella.

What other advice do I have?

It has probably helped us to remediate threats more quickly. It is a good solution for user devices but probably not for servers.

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.